Parties – Page 29 – Slugger O'Toole

HBO’s Michael Lombardo: “Belfast is not the most cosmopolitan of cities to spend half of the year.”

Pete Baker on June 12, 2014, 10:32 pm

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With so much of some Northern Ireland Executive ministers‘ time and effort [and other people’s money! – Ed] focused on exploiting the international success of HBO’s Game of Thrones to promote Northern Ireland overseas, it’s perhaps unfortunate, but refreshing, that HBO’s director of programming, Michael Lombardo, has given an honest answer to a straight question – as the BBC report here. From the New York Magazine’s Vulture blog The whole production seems so daunting that I didn’t know if an eighth book would …

“Personally I think Adams’ stated allegiance to democratic politics is subservient to this dream..”

Mick Fealty on June 12, 2014, 8:13 pm

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Interesting essay by Colm Keena with thoughts on the very long (and very secret) career of Gerry Adams. Hs views are fairly subjective views, but how John’s touched on the deep and early (and lasting) enmity between the SDLP and the IRA, it might provide a useful counterbalance to some of the conjecture there… What struck me… [was] the way the movement for civil rights in Northern Ireland, encouraged as it was by other such movements around the world targeting oppression, became so particularly …

Will Anna Lo ‘return’ to politics to fight for South Belfast next year?

Mick Fealty on June 11, 2014, 1:28 pm

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Brian asked the question of what the last elections added up to. Having done a lot of detailed analysis I’m still teasing that out. Two thing major things strike me about East and South Belfast though that seem to run counter to pre election expectations. One is the underperformance of Gavin Robinson, someone who was being talked of as the DUP candidate in the next Westminster election, the above expectations of the UUP neither of which necessarily help the sitting …

After the election… Yes but what does it all amount to (if anything)?

Brian Walker on June 7, 2014, 1:16 am

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After the series on party fortunes after the elections an overview is now needed badly The MSM isn’t doing it. Someone should. This is not it. From afar : I’ve no idea why the 50+% odd vote was 15% higher than in England. Any guesses? Where are you Nicholas Whyte? Is there a good analysis of differential turnout that I’ve missed? In the North small earthquake in Chile. Not much has changed politically. Unionist parties ran a race to the right and increased …

After the election… the DUP…

Mick Fealty on June 6, 2014, 7:29 am

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In putting together these post election profiles it is obvious the degree to which we arriving at a common Irish political culture based on the use of the Single Transferable Vote system of PR north and south. It concentrates the mind of political parties on the precise needs of their own voters (almost to the exclusion of all else) to a much greater degree than under systems elsewhere. It also makes matters difficult for external pundits to figure out what’s going on with …

After the election… Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland…

Mick Fealty on June 4, 2014, 4:47 pm

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So how was it in Northern Ireland for Sinn Fein? Answer, not bad. The party’s big machine and, by now, well established incumbency pretty much took care of business, whilst the main show went ahead in the south. One of Sinn Fein’s signal achievements, with the aid of more than a few helpful witnesses in the Northern Irish media, has been to keep relatively private just how little it has done with the substantial mandate it has had in Stormont …

Now it’s the PSNI in the dock. Chaos over the past deepens as political deadlock over Haas agenda continues

Brian Walker on June 3, 2014, 7:39 pm

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At last the clash has come between accountability and transparency and “national security” over dealing with the past. After the unhappy period of Al Hutchinson we have a Police Ombudsman in the assertive tradition of Nuala O’Loan. Michael Maguire who was also Hutchinson’s successor as Police Oversight Commissioner probably knows where quite few bodies are buried (figuratively of course) and is an altogether steelier figure. NI’s chief constable is being taken to court over claims he obstructed Police Ombudsman investigations into …

After the election… NI21…

Mick Fealty on June 3, 2014, 2:50 pm

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So, before I get to finish off with the big boys and girls of Northern Ireland (Sinn Fein and the DUP tomorrow and Thursday), lets go briefly to the smallest of all the challengers, NI21. I suppose it helps prove one of FitzJamesHorse’s most persistent contentions about NI politics, that just because the media say they love you doesn’t mean they actually do, or that the voters will. To look at the hard figures, Tina McKenzie lifted 10,553 or 1.7% …

After the election… Fianna Fail…

Mick Fealty on May 29, 2014, 7:57 pm

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After Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail is the longest continuously operating party in the Republic. Their long ongoing argument with big rival Fine Gael is often characterised as a continuation of civil war politics. Yet such reasoning is largely academic. These historic if unresolved issues have barely featured in southern political life in thirty years. Class is probably a more significant factor, with Fianna Fail traditionally drawing more support from the lower end of Ireland’s social scale. Yet even that is …

The next Chief Constable… is George Hamilton

Pete Baker on May 29, 2014, 3:46 pm

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch… Having “unanimously” agreed to appoint Matt Baggott as PSNI Chief Constable in 2009 for his strong advocacy of “community-style policing”, the Northern Ireland Policing Board, or its party political members, might be said to be experiencing buyer’s regret. Alternatively, those same political parties have undermined the outgoing Chief Constable throughout his tenure by putting their own party political concerns ahead of the ‘greater good’ – by word, and by deed. [“ahem* – Ed]. ANYhoo… with Matt Baggott announcing his …

After the election… The UUP..

Mick Fealty on May 29, 2014, 7:39 am

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On Friday at the count, Mike Nesbitt was on a roll and so was his party. I was surprised at the news from East Belfast, particularly Ormiston one of two DEAs making up the most of the coming battleground between the sitting MEP Naomi Long and the DUP. The drama lingered to the very end, just into Sunday morning when the DUP’s Denny Vitty was edged out by the Green candidate Ross Brown. Having taken two seats further up the count, the …

After the election… Alliance…

Mick Fealty on May 28, 2014, 6:21 pm

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Forty plus years in the political middle have made the Alliance party one of the most agile (which often irritates their opponents) of Northern Ireland’s political parties. Overall not a huge amount has changed for them, although there’s something of a problem in East Belfast where the flag issue has alienated a lot of working class loyalists it previously had the support of. One failure to elect was Duncan Morrow in the Botanic DEA of Belfast. But appears to have been more …

The British goverment must set a better example before the case for an amnesty is properly heard

Brian Walker on May 28, 2014, 12:20 pm

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Adrian Guelke a South African a Queen’s academic and a leading authority on post-conflict resolution joins the growing list of reputable figures calling for an amnesty. He criticises the two governments for lack of involvement (although the unfortunate Eamon Gilmore can’t be faulted for trying almost right up to the moment of his resignation as Labour leader) Extracts. An unfortunate sequence of events has unfolded that has the potential to threaten the peace, including the failure of the Haass talks, histrionics …

After the election… The TUV…

Mick Fealty on May 28, 2014, 10:33 am

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I think it was David Brewster in the research for Slugger’s paper on the future of unionism in Northern Ireland who told us that what Unionists needed more than anything else was a win. It’s been a very long time coming, but if there is one clear victor in this election it was Unionism’s reversal of a long term drop in unionist turnout and possibly initiating the rolling back of a highly pervasive sense of defeatism. Jim Allister may have …

After the election… Sinn Fein (in the south)…

Mick Fealty on May 28, 2014, 7:33 am

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So what can we say? Stunning, fantastic, brilliant. It’s Sinn Fein doing what they do best, which is winning elections and running a great campaign.. Some will draw negative inferences from 15% rate which significantly underruns their polling rate of around 20%. But the party had to run their southern campaign on a roster of skeleton teams, with northern sponsors to brand new cummain. As Micheal Martin put it, they have pretty effectively cannibalised the Labour vote. In the process …

Irish and English election results so different, so much the same

Brian Walker on May 27, 2014, 2:39 pm

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Similar trends and outcomes are apparent when the British and Irish elections results are compared. They are of course part of a common European picture. But the immediate effect on the coalition governments at Westminster and in Leinster House differs. The Irish coalition is rocking. The Irish Times is even speculating that pressure from Labour may bring forward the 2106 election date. This would seem a perverse response. A factor for the longer term may be the relative revival of Fianna …

NI Local Government: results at a glance

Pete Baker on May 24, 2014, 11:55 pm

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As Nicholas said, “This is an election with few dramatic changes.” But, for the record, here are the %s of all the first preference votes from the Northern Ireland Local Government elections. [Updated 462 of 462 seats allocated] Party 1st Pref. +/-* Seats DUP 23.1% -4.1% 130 SF 24.1% -0.7% 105 UUP 16.1% +0.9% 88 SDLP 13.6% -1.4% 66 Others 16.5% +6.1% 41 Alliance 6.7% -0.7% 32 *Comparison with First Preference Share in 2011 What drama there is …

#LE14 The story so far

Nicholas Whyte on May 24, 2014, 11:05 am

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This is an election with few dramatic changes. The major parties have pretty much stayed as they were, as far as we can tell given the changed boundaries. The DUP, SF and Alliance have perhaps slipped back a little, and the UUP moved forward a bit, but that impression based on yesterday’s counts is slight enough to be reversible today. (My first take from Mid Ulster early yesterday afternoon was that the SDLP and UUP were in trouble; this was …

Personal memories of Sunningdale and the UWC strike – the lost opportunity for a generation

Brian Walker on May 22, 2014, 7:10 pm

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Although I couldn’t attend the conferences they’ve sparked off vivid memories. This was a time when not only Northern Ireland seemed ungovernable but Britain too. At the Sunningdale civil service college in Berkshire we in the media were stuck in the conference annex for days because of the difficulty of getting taxis during the three day week, then in full force. TV had to close down at 10 o’clock each night – it was that bad. In spite of the atmosphere of crisis in England hopes …

“staggering from crisis to crisis…”

Pete Baker on May 21, 2014, 5:37 pm

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A very important point from Oliver Burkeman in his Guardian blog post. Institutions – from national newspapers to governments and politicial parties – invest an enormous amount of money and effort in denying this truth. The facades they maintain are crucial to their authority, and thus to their legitimacy and continued survival. We need them to appear ultra-competent, too, because we derive much psychological security from the belief that somewhere, in the highest echelons of society, there are some near-infallible …